Chocolate with salt

I'm so late this week and apologizing for the delay. We have winter holidays and the kindergarten is closed; after almost 2 weeks at home, my three year old is missing her friends and is noticeably bored. I just hear her calling me all day and she wants to be carried around all day long. I'm so thankful for my husband being home and helping out, but both our patience is spent.
That's the best time for takeaways, but if it comes to takeaways here in Windhoek, the choice is very poor, beside the unsatisfying taste.
We have lots of different chicken and burger takeaways, Italian and Chinese and that's mostly it. There is a new place, that just opened a few weeks ago and is actually selling Döner Kebabs, but the last time we were there to try it out, the whole shop was full of smoke. I'm sure, we will give it an other try, but for now we decided on homemade.
This are moments, I really miss Berlin or Cape Town and the fabulous takeaway places, where you can get Döner, Shawarma and Co.
Berlin of course, as the hometown of the famous Döner Kebab, had the most amazing places you can imagine. Additionally I was living in Tiergarten Moabit, a suburb with mainly Turkish and Arabic population, so needless to say I was sitting at the source. From greengrocer, baker to the butcher, I had the best culinary experience from the Middle-east world right on my doorstep.

But that's far away now and I decided to try it myself. I'm not sure I can call them Shawarmas though, but let say it's my take.


We had them actually twice that week, once with lamb and once with beef.
Lamb was definitely the big winner. Even though I took lamb chops, not the best cut for that purpose, but it was more than delicious. And the dogs were happy about the leftovers hanging on the bones.
The beef was o k a y, but somehow it wasn't as satisfying as the lamb. I don't know, if the meat seasoning didn't work that well, or maybe I've cut the meat to thick, somehow we were missing something.

The pita bread was the second time head and shoulders better, for one thing because I managed to overbake them the first time by not sticking to the recommended backing time, for another thing the dough was resting for four days in the fridge and the flour had enough time to develop.

We'll definitely have that dish more often and next time, I will try to stick more to the original ingredients like tabbouleh and hummus (chickpeas are already bought).
But for now, we were more than happy about the outcome of my first homemade Shawarmas.

Ingredients

For the pita bread (8 pieces)

450 g white bread flour
pinch of sugar
2 tsp salt
300 ml lukewarm water
1 small pkg instant yeast (7 g)
2 tbsp olive oil


For the shawarma spice (dry rub for the meat)

1 tsp ground cumin
2 tsp coriander seeds
1 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp turmeric
1 clove
1/4 tsp ground cayenne pepper
1 tsp black pepper corns
1/4 tsp cinnamon

For the shawarma (4 pieces)

500 g lamb or beef (or chicken, turkey, veal or mixed meat)
shawarma spice
4 pita breads
1 tomato
1 medium carrot
250 g white cabbage
1 onion

250 ml Greek yogurt
1/4 English cucumber or 1 Lebanese cucumber
1 garlic clove
2 stalks mint (optional)
salt
pepper
lemon juice

Let's get started with the pita breads.
First mix the yeast and sugar into the lukewarm water and set aside, till the yeast starts to work and foam forms on the surface.
Mix the flour with the salt in a mixer and add slowly the water-yeast mix on slow speed. Add then the oil and mix for a few minutes till all the flour is fully incorporated (about 1 minute), then speed up to medium speed and let knead for 10 minutes, so the dough is completely detached from the bowl, smooth and slightly sticky.
Oil the bowl (I used spray oil) and move the dough around, so it's also nicely greased, cover with cling foil and set aside to rise for an hour. Fold the dough every 15 minutes.
If you have the patience to wait three days for the dough, put the dough into the fridge. In that case you must fold the dough for the first four hours, every half an hour. Then leave it in the fridge for three days.
I folded my dough every 15 minutes for an hour, then halved the dough and put the one half into the fridge and baked the other half the same evening.

Prepare the shawarma spice in a mortar and rub into the meat. Put aside.

Slice the tomato, cabbage and onion. Grate coarsely the carrot. Put aside.

Grate coarsely the cucumber into the Greek yogurt. Chop the garlic finely, if you have mint handy, chop it also finely and add to the yogurt, season with salt, pepper and lemon juice.

Preheat the oven to 250°C and if you have one, place a pizza/bread stone in the oven to heat up.

After an hour (or three days) knead the dough and divide in 4 (or 8) pieces. If you do this step after three days, you must first take the dough out a few hours before preparation, in order to have the dough at room temperature. Form into balls, than flatten with your hand into a disc and roll with a rolling pin to the size desired. Mines were approximately hand size.

Sprinkle lightly with some water and place in the oven. Bake for approximately 3 minutes or till the pitas pop up to the fullest. Don't wait for them to brown, as I did the first time, they will crisp up on the top and burn on the bottom and you won't be able to fill them properly.
Put them aside.

Pan fry the meat to your liking and slice as thin as possible.

Fill now the pitas with the meat, then the veggies and top up with the yogurt.

Enjoy!


My inspiration for the pita breads came from here: http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2009/03/pita-bread/

And the shawarma spice recipe I found here: http://howtoexpo.com/recipes/shawarma-spice-recipe